Beach attendance peaks on Memorial Day

What do you get when you combine near-flawless weather, mild water temperatures and the Memorial Day holiday?

One of the busiest beach days in recent memory, San Diego lifeguards said.

About 223,000 people hit San Diego city beaches on Monday, roughly 80,000 more than on Sunday and more than double the near-100,000 on Saturday.

Lifeguards on Monday performed 73 medical aids, 99 water rescues and did 1,871 preventative acts, which include announcing rip-current warnings. While the totals were all up from Sunday's 42 medical aids, 30 water rescues and 1,453 preventative acts, there were no major incidents, Buchanan said.

The estimate is from beaches monitored by San Diego lifeguards, which stretch from Ocean Beach north to Black's Beach, Lifeguard Lt. Greg Buchanan said.

While it was less than the 250,000 they expected, Buchanan said it was a large crowd nonetheless.

"That is a lot of people," Buchanan said. "It was a beautiful beach day, no doubt about it, which made for an active and challenging work day."

For the weekend, more than 460,000 people went to city beaches, he said.

Buchanan didn't have beach attendance records handy, but said it was the largest Memorial Day crowd in recent years because cloudy and drizzly kept people away from the beaches in past years.

"This was a warmer Memorial Day than we've had in a couple of years," he said.